Preparing NASA's Next Solar Satellite for Launch: Orbital Sciences team members move the second half of the payload fairing before it is placed over NASA's IRIS (Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) spacecraft. The fairing connects to the nose of the Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket that will lift the solar observatory into orbit.
Photo Credit: NASA/Tony Vauclin
Separated at birth? Maybe not. The other half of this image could just have easily been the sad part of E.T. when he's sick and in the tube. Choose your own adventure — On the left, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, "Wonkavision"; on the right, the Orbital Sciences team prepares NASA's IRIS spacecraft
Warner Bros. | NASA/Tony Vauclin
This image from the joint NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hinode mission shows the lower regions of the sun’s atmosphere, the interface region, which a new mission called the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, will study in exquisite detail.
Credit: NASA&JAXA/Hinode

NASA will launch a new set of eyes to offer the most detailed look ever of the sun’s lower atmosphere, called the interface region. This region is believed to play a crucial role in powering the sun’s dynamic million-degree atmosphere, the corona. The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph or IRIS mission will provide the best resolution so far of the widest range of temperatures for of the interface region, an area that has historically been difficult to study.